It is a desirable merchandising practice with cosmetics, particularly lipstick, blush and/or fragrance, to provide a one use sample so that the customer may observe how the cosmetic and its color or fragrance harmonizes with her. It is unsanitary and counterproductive to provide product in the normal form as, for example, a lipstick, compact or other container. Accordingly, the practice has developed for making small "samplers" which generally consist of a continuous base strip of paper or like material covered by discontinuous cover slips which may be transparent. Cosmetic is sandwiched between the opaque base strip and the cover slips. Trademarks and other identifying legends may be printed on a portion of the base or cover slip or both. The prospective customer after making a preliminary selection among the samplers will raise the cover slip to uncover the cosmetic or perfume which may then be applied to herself for viewing or sampling the fragrance.
This invention relates to a cartridge for dispensing samplers of cosmetics such as rouge, blush, lipstick, eye liner, eye shadow, mascara, face powder and fragrance. It also relates to a display case holding a plurality of such cartridges together with corresponding products and identifying indicia. It is known in the art to dispense samplers as a continuous roll segmented for tear-off into discreet small packages. Such samplers, while a great improvement for sanitary purposes, have proven cumbersome and frequently over feed a plurality of packages or become unravelled and disorderly. Consequently, it is an object of the invention to provide a novel sampler and a cartridge for dispensing individual stacked samplers one by one.
An object of the invention is to provide a cassette adaptable for use with samplers currently on the market. It is another object of the invention to provide a novel sampler, particularly usable in my novel dispenser.
The present invention comprises a cartridge to contain a stack of samplers for delivery one at a time through a dispensing slot located near the top or bottom of the stack. It is a further object of the invention to provide a display case in which a plurality of such cartridges or stacked samplers may be placed in close proximity to identifying indicia and actual merchandise offered for purchase.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a cassette such as described above, which may be readily ganged in a display case to permit the user to observe a number of samplers before making her initial selection(s).
It is also an object to provide a display case compartmentalized to provide a plurality of sampler dispensers incorporating the principles of my cartridge.
It is a further object of the invention to provide in combination ganged sampler cassettes or compartments in a display case such as described above with bins for storing and/or dispensing the product corresponding to the samplers in respective cassettes or compartments.
Still another object is to provide a transparent top on the cassettes or compartments through which the sampler may be observed prior to withdrawal by the prospective customer.